From the Washington Examiner (Jan. 1):
Say goodbye to the regular light bulb this New Year.
For more than a century, the traditional incandescent bulb was the symbol of American innovation. Starting Jan. 1, the famous bulb is illegal to manufacture in the U.S., and it has become a fitting symbol for the collusion of big business and big government.
The 2007 Energy Bill, a stew of regulations and subsidies, set mandatory efficiency standards for most light bulbs. Any bulbs that couldn't produce a given brightness at the specified energy input would be illegal. That meant the 25-cent bulbs most Americans used in nearly every socket of their home would be outlawed.
People often assume green regulations like this represent the triumph of environmental activists trying to save the planet. That’s rarely the case, and it wasn't here. Light bulb manufacturers whole-heartedly supported the efficiency standards. General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — the three companies that dominated the bulb industry — all backed the 2007 rule, while opposing proposals to explicitly outlaw incandescent technology (thus leaving the door open for high-efficiency incandescents).
This wasn't a case of an industry getting on board with an inevitable regulation in order to tweak it. The lighting industry was the main reason the legislation was moving. As the New York Times reported in 2011, “Philips formed a coalition with environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council to push for higher standards.”
Industry support for the regulations struck lawmakers and journalists as a ringing endorsement of the regulations. Republican Congressmen Fred Upton, who has since flip-flopped and attacked the regulations, cosponsored the light bulb provision in 2007. His excuse, according to conservatives I spoke to: It couldn't be that bad if the industry supported it.
Liberals used this very argument to ridicule Republicans' 2011 efforts to repeal the law. Democratic congressman Steny Hoyer defended the rule by saying, “The standards are supported by the lightbulb industry.”
Joe Romm at the Center for American Progress pinned repeal efforts on the “extremist Tea Party wing of the party, which opposes all government standards, even ones that the lightbulb industry itself wants.”
That “even” signifies that the industry’s support indicates consensus. Instead, it signifies how consumers lose.
Competitive markets with low costs of entry have a characteristic that consumers love and businesses lament: very low profit margins. GE, Philips and Sylvania dominated the U.S. market in incandescents, but they couldn’t convert that dominance into price hikes. Because of light bulb’s low material and manufacturing costs, any big climb in prices would have invited new competitors to undercut the giants — and that new competitor would probably have won a distribution deal with Wal-Mart.
So, simply the threat of competition kept profit margins low on the traditional light bulb — that's the magic of capitalism. GE and Sylvania searched for higher profits by improving the bulb — think of the GE Soft White bulb. These companies, with their giant research budgets, made advances with halogen, LED and fluorescent technologies, and even high-efficiency incandescents. They sold these bulbs at a much higher prices — but they couldn’t get many customers to buy them for those high prices. That's the hard part about capitalism — consumers, not manufacturers, get to demand what something is worth.
Capitalism ruining their party, the bulb-makers turned to government. Philips teamed up with NRDC. GE leaned on its huge lobbying army — the largest in the nation — and soon they were able to ban the low-profit-margin bulbs.
The high-tech, high-cost, high-margin bulbs have advantages: They live longer and use much less electricity. In the long run, this can save people money. But depending on your circumstances, these gains might be mitigated or eradicated....MOREIf interested see also the Examiner's Jan. 8 piece "Your light bulb loss is manufacturers' gain" and Jan. 9's "Bipartisan Bush-signed, Obama-backed light-bulb law wins 'Dumbest New Ban in 2014'"
The writer, Tim Carney has one of the most depressing beats I can think of, chronicling the corruption and venality of those who seek power, whether economic or political. I've been reading him for years.
(okay, maybe not as depressing as Nick Kristof trying to expose the Darfur genocide but still depressing)
Some of our light bulb posts (there really are hundreds, mainly on LED's):
September 2009
Light Bulbs: "As C.F.L. Sales Fall, More Incentives Urged" (GE)
"How One State’s Light Bulb Legislation Could Impact All U.S. Manufacturing"
There will be powerful forces arrayed against this idea.December 2011
For Sale Cheap--1MM 100-watts: "Congress overturns incandescent light bulb ban"
That'll teach me.Oct. 2010
When the little voice in my head said "Go long 100-watts, they're the most popular" I should have remembered the Great Pork Fiasco of aught-eight when the Chinese threw open the doors to their Strategic Pork Reserve and I ended up eating BLT's for a year.
But no, instead the little voice says "If you buy 'em by the freight car load you'll make even more when the phase out hits".
Fuckin' little voice.
Congressional negotiators struck a deal Thursday that overturns the new rules that were to have banned sales of traditional incandescent light bulbs beginning next year.
That agreement is tucked inside the massive 1,200-page spending bill that funds the government through the rest of this fiscal year, and which both houses of Congress will vote on Friday. Mr. Obama is expected to sign the bill, which heads off a looming government shutdown....
Green-Conscious GE Develops Hybrid Lightbulb (GE)
FAIRFIELD, CT—One year after pledging to develop more energy-efficient products, General Electric Co. unveiled a product it is calling its most eco-friendly lighting source to date: the first-ever gasoline-electric hybrid lightbulb.
"With the price of gas escalating as its supply dwindles, now is the perfect time to introduce innovative lighting technology that only relies on this fast-depleting, nonrenewable resource for a portion of its power," GE chairman Jeff Immelt said in a statement released Monday....MORE
The hybrid bulb's structure—slightly more complex than the older filament-and-wire models...
